Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2011-11-13 16:35
I think Steve's playing is excellent -- PROPER clarinet playing, I'd say.
I can't find the Boeykens recording -- there's a coupling of the Weber concertino, concertos I and II and the Gran duo; Boeykens plays the stuff with orchestra, but the performance of the Gran duo seems to be by Paul Meyer and Francois-Rene Duchable. And it's primarily the piano playing that makes the difference between Steve's live concert and that CD, if it's the one you're talking about.
Duchable is a monster pianist, and a bit of a madman: he's the one that said he was going to burn his pianos and tails in protest at the elitism of the music scene:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3044844.stm
...so it's not surprising that he and Meyer turn in an electrifying performance.
Actually, in our repertoire, that's often the problem; it makes little sense to talk about a CLARINET PLAYER'S performance of the Brahms sonatas when the pianist is so important and such a controlling influence. And that's true of this Weber piece too, with its notorious piano part.
Interestingly, Weber's piano, now owned by Christopher Hogwood, would have made the piano part more tractable; its action is much lighter, and the keys narrower.
I think the recording of Steve's performance was badly balanced, too; you hear him too strongly at moments when you want to hear the piano line, which seems much more distant. But he plays with real understanding, and I imagine he's a fine conductor.
Incidentally, bad and thoughtless balance is a cardinal fault of the Kell recording mentioned above -- and that was a properly engineered disc, not a performance. (Listen to his low E in the first movement, and then how he plays the clarinet accompaniment to the piano tune that immediately follows, for example.)
But then, as I've said here before, Kell tended to be more concerned with his own ego than with the integrity of the music as a whole, so the fact that the piano part comes across as an also-ran to his clarinet wouldn't have worried him overmuch.
Any pointers to an actual recording by Boeykens gratefully received.
Tony
Post Edited (2011-11-13 17:32)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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